AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly unveiled how a phone call with Sebastian Vettel helped him get a Red Bull seat in Formula 1.
Sebastian Vettel’s retirement news has left his fellow drivers to reminisce the old memories that they have with him. Amidst the flood of respect and admiration, Pierre Gasly revealed a phone call with Vettel that changed his life.
Six years ago, Gasly had won the GP2 series (now known as F2) and was a part of Red Bull’s young driver’s programme. However, he was not directly promoted to Formula 1.
The Frenchman worked briefly with Vettel in 2014, who was in his final season with Red Bull when Gasly was appointed to the Red Bull junior squad.
Gasly recalled that he had the chance to work with the German driver; to see how he worked and how much effort he made, his work ethic and his dedication to the sport.
When Gasly won the F2 in 2016, no seats were left in either of Red Bull’s two teams in F1. The F2 champion did not get immediately promoted to F1. He called Vettel(who was a Ferrari driver at the time) for his advice and opinion on the ‘how to deal with Red Bull’ situation.
“I remember calling him one night and I just wanted like five minutes to get his opinion. It turned out to be a one-and-a-half-hour call,” Gasly said.
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“We have some similar traits of character” – Pierre Gasly
The French driver revealed how unimportant he felt while calling Vettel but felt grateful when the German was happy to help.
“At the time it was like you’re an F1 driver racing for Ferrari. In your list of priorities, I’m very, very low. But he still took 90 minutes to speak with me,” Gasly said.
“This I’ll always be very, very grateful for. Then after that, we always kind of kept quite a close relationship and had a couple of dinners together. I think he’s a fantastic driver, but also a great human being,” he further added.
Gasly, eventually made his debut in F1 with Toro Rosso(now AlphaTauri) later in 2017. The Frenchman had an unsuccessful half-season at Red Bull in 2019 due to which he was demoted back to the junior team. He has been an AlphaTauri driver ever since.
Furthermore, Gasly revealed that the four-time world champion had called to congratulate him when he[Gasly] took home a surprise win in the 2020 Italian Grand Prix.
“I think we always got on very well together. We have some, I will say, similar traits of character, not all of them, but some are similar and I think that’s why we do have a lot of respect for each other,” he added.
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